Grover Norquist

well folks, expect to see his smug face all over the tv machine for a day or two. He needs to convince his pledge takers that he still can deploy forces against them if they do not do what he wants them to do. Like the NRA he can. He can put in thousands of dollars into a primary, so realize this. That is where his power comes from.

But expect him to continue this, as he is making lemonade of the lemons he has been forced to take, and right at the moment he needs to convince those pledge signers that they did no wrong, but that he can still come after them

28. More like

2. Naw...like someone else said

he moved the line in the sand because everyone knows he doesn't have enough muster to do anything. If it was a few Republicans here and there...sure...but half of the entire Republican party decide to drop a deuce in the middle of his sun bathing session.

5. Are you kidding? Norquist WON this thing.

The Bush tax cuts were passed under reconciliation rules (i.e. simple majority in the Senate.) Reconciliation rules required the tax cuts to be temporary -- no more than 10 years.

There were a few other details in the bill that just passed, but the main thing is that Obama just gave Norquist the best present ever. Obama took the TEMPORARY bush cuts and made about 99% of them PERMANENT.

This locks us into a structural deficit for the next generation, and that means the "Starve the Beast" strategy has never been stronger.

About half the people at DU understand what happened. The other have are too busy spiking the ball to realize how hosed we are for the next generation.

14. It is "permanent" for at least a decade

There will be no significant revenue increases unless we can take over the House.

Most people think this is impossible under the current state of the districts. It takes 10 years to change that. The next real opportunity is 2022, and in order to do that, we have to control enough of the Governorships and state legislatures BEFORE the 2020 census.

As soon as you explain how that is going to happen, I will concede you know what you are talking about when you say "nothing is permanent".

16. It isn't about me. It is about Norquist. Anybody who thinks his role is diminished

does not understand who he is, what he does, and what the big game plan is. Obama gave him essentially everything he could have dreamed of. Obama did what Bush could not -- making those reckless tax cuts PERMANENT, locking us into "starve the beast" mode for the next generation at least.

19. Yes. That was a good thing, but it will not happen again

in the next term, I predict. Boehner did it because he had no alternative. And tactically it was the best option. The teabaggers needed to vote against anything that Obama was for, but Boehner could not take the heat of letting this slip into the next Congress. And you can bet that behind the scenes, Norquist was very clear this deal had to go through quickly before the terms changed.

Again, the big GOP strategy is "starve the beast" Everything else is secondary. And this deal gave Norquist exactly what he wanted: a non-expiring (if you don't like the word "permanent") tax cut that locks us into "starve the beast" mode for a generation.

It never has to come up for another vote.

Seriously people, if you gave Norquist his choice between the Bush plan, which was only good for 10 years and the Obama plan, which has 98% of those same cuts and never expires, it is obvious that Norquist would take the Obama plan in a heartbeat.

Anybody (not addressing anybody in particular) who does not understand that really should spend less time spiking the football and more time studying the recent history of American politics.

21. If you are a professional reporter, then I am sure you must understand revenue as a % of GDP

And if you understand that, then you will know that there is not any reasonable amount of growth that will close that structural deficit. That is the whole point of CREATING the structural deficit. The GOP does that on purpose. That is the "starve the beast" strategy.

You act like I am making this up. And you also act like you are not familiar with the basics of government finance. So I hope your area of expertise is some other part of the political scene. But you could gain an understanding of the broad landscape by studying the Simpson-Bowles report. There is must to dislike in that report, but they are rather objective about the description of the problem.

It is like drug addition recovery. The first step is in admitting there is a problem.

I am not interested in debating this. Come back in 4 years and tell me if I am wrong. Actually, you won't have to wait that long. You will see several episodes of "starve the beast" in 2013.